Barack Obama's second inauguration

Barack Obama is from the government, and he is here to help

WHAT Barack Obama wants to do with four more years in office is not so very mysterious. He wants to complete the Great Society project of such progressive forefathers as both Roosevelts and Lyndon Johnson, and make it sustainable in an America that faces unprecedented global competition. How he plans to do that, when he must share power with fiercely hostile Republicans in Congress for the foreseeable future, is a more interesting question.

Mr Obama's inaugural speech, delivered this morning beneath a bright, chilly Washington sky, offered a remarkably stark answer. He plans to confront Republicans, co-opt their most cherished beliefs about American exceptionalism and individualism, pin them into a corner with the power of public opinion and—in the longer-term—to marginalise them by building his party a progressive coalition from such diverse groups as women, ethnic minorities, gays, the young, immigrants and environmentalists.

Though the speech rang with references to national unity, the founding fathers and the ties that bind Americans, it was a deeply partisan piece of work. In his second term, Mr Obama's big tent will be held up by Democratic ropes and stays. Those who insist on remaining outside, it was easy to conclude, risk feeling very cold indeed.

The power of public opinion is palpable at an inauguration ceremony, a strange and handsome hybrid of coronation and political rally. Your blogger was lucky to snaffle a seat in a sort of no-man's land on the Capitol's west front, between the serried rows of congressional spouses and the Marine Corps band, at the foot of the presidential podium. In the lull before the president's arrival, grandees of the Senate displayed themselves at a balustrade next to his still-empty lectern. They showed off silly hats (several wore stetsons, one wore a beret, and Senator Bill Nelson of Florida came in a bright orange hunting-cap bearing his name). They waved to friends, family and constituents, and generally acted like politicians seeking the love of a crowd.

Then came Mr Obama, and the atmosphere gained a wholly new charge. The crowd gathered far below the Capitol may have been smaller than four years ago, but it still stretched almost to the Washington Monument and it was filled with true believers. The sight of the president on giant screens down the National Mall sent up a roar from the crowd that made hair stand on end.

Mr Obama took that applause, and sought to harness it. Inauguration speeches are often hailed as moments to reach across partisan divides, and make peace after the bruising fights of the election just ended. Time and again, Mr Obama seemed to be re-fighting that election.

At the very start of his inaugural address, he offered a definition of what it means to be American: an allegiance to the idea of equal creation and unalienable rights articulated in the opening lines of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. It was hard not to hear a direct challenge to the argument set out by Mitt Romney, his vanquished Republican foe, and the Republicans' vice-presidential running-mate, Paul Ryan. It was Mr Ryan who, on the day that he joined the presidential ticket, galvanised American conservatives with his declaration that America was unique in being a country "founded on an idea", namely that:

Our rights come from nature and God, not government. We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. This idea is founded on the principles of liberty, freedom, free enterprise, self-determination and government by consent of the governed

Six months later, in the first moments of his second term, Mr Obama took on that small-government credo. Jeffersonian truths may be self-evident but "they've never been self-executing", Mr Obama said, with something approaching audible scorn. "While freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on earth."

The president bowed to core conservative beliefs about American exceptionalism, conceding that he governs a people sceptical of central authority, disdainful of the "fiction" that society's ills can be cured by government alone, and unusually insistent that it is an American's duty to seek success through hard work, personal responsibility and a dose of risk-taking. He is right. That belief in meritocracy and enterprise sets America apart from other rich nations, notably on the continent of Europe, where people are much likelier to ascribe success to good luck or connections, and to believe that the state should intervene to ensure no citizens fall too far behind the most fortunate.

But if Mr Obama is not the European socialist of his enemies' gibes, he is something closer to a European liberal, setting out a vision of a state safety net whose job is to protect responsible, hard-working citizens from the strokes of ill luck that can strike at any time (Mr Obama cited job losses, sudden illnesses, or the sweeping away of a home in a terrible storm). At that moment, the president argued, commitments made by Americans to each other, through such Great Society programmes as Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, do not sap initiative but strengthen it. In his pointed words:

They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great

He went on to list some concrete consequences that flow from his vision of a communal action as an enabler of American individualism. In a canter through big agenda items for his second term, that will be spelled out in more detail in his February state-of-the-union address, Mr Obama talked of action on climate change (chiding those who "still deny the overwhelming judgment of science" on global warming) and action to make America a leader in sustainable energy production. He committed himself to seeking diplomatic solutions to security crises, and ran through a veritable to-do list of Democratic ambitions, from equal pay for women to gay equality, comprehensive immigration reform and (through a coy reference to Newtown in Connecticut) to action on gun violence.

It was not necessary to settle centuries-long debates on the role of government, but political leaders did have to take decisions without delay, reaching imperfect and impartial agreements if needs be. "We cannot mistake absolutism for principle," declared the president.

Few can have mistaken his meaning. Beneath the ringing oratory about America's journey and the work of generations, Mr Obama was directly challenging the core beliefs of today's Republican Party. Even that throwaway mention of those receiving help from government not being "takers" was a swipe at Mr Romney and his secretly-recorded comments about the Democratic base being the 47% of the population who pay no federal income taxes (and who are thus "takers", in the jargon of the American right, leeching on the nation's hard-working "makers"). From the backhand slap for climate-change deniers, to the rebuke of "absolutism", Mr Obama was attacking congressional Republicans, notably in the House of Representatives, and their entire conception of their role in a divided government. He gave Republicans almost no ground, making the briefest of references to their defining concern, the nation's deficit spending.

Perhaps confrontation will prove to be a fruitful strategy. Mr Obama's supporters would point to his first term, and the serial obstructionism of Republicans in Congress, and argue that the president has no choice but to come out fighting, as he seeks to achieve anything in his final few years in office.

I wish I could feel so gung-ho. Those same founding fathers ensured that an American president must share his vast powers with Congress, and Republicans still control the House of Representatives and can filibuster and stall legislation in the Senate, through their minority there. How did today's speech set out the process by which Mr Obama plans to govern?

It was fascinating to see Mr Obama sketch out his vision of how individualism and American risk-taking need a progressive safety net to thrive. That will be a potent argument for Democrats to promote in future elections, as they seek to occupy the centre ground of politics and corral Republicans on the political fringes.

Today's inaugural address also set out attack lines that Democrats will be able to use in the event of continued Republican obstructionism, as they seek to blame their opponents for dysfunction in Washington and make Republicans pay the electoral price in the 2014 mid-terms and the 2016 general election.

But if you believe that getting anything done in the next four years will require the support of at least some moderate Republicans, it is hard to see how Mr Obama's inaugural address will have helped much.

The president came to the Capitol as a victorious commander, staking claims to large swathes of American political territory. But the public did not hand him complete victory. A majority of states have Republican governors, and (partly through gerrymandering and partly through more organic quirks of electoral geography), Republicans have a lock on the House of Representatives. It was a powerful speech, but how this ends well, I struggle to see.

And if you check your constitution (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html), you will find that budgets are Congress' responsibility, not the president (Article 1, Section 7). The president has no constitutional authority to submit bills to Congress (Article 2). But for a very long time, Congress has abdicated its authority for such legislation to the president.

Yes and no. The federalist papers (Madison, Hamilton, and Smith) describe in endless detail the potential for tyrany of the majority. This is contrasted with their discussion of the potentially damaging consequences of faction. Although the structure of federal and state government may have been in part by chance (pragmatic negotiations based upon influence), they argued that it was designed in such a matter as to use faction for good in the protection of the minority.

My own personal view mostly aligns with this. We have 220 years of prior legislation to cover past and forecast problems. A less active legislature and a government which changes less rapidly in divisive areas can be considered favorable. This tempers populust whims and protects the rights of the minority. However, for big issues with a (more) agreeable approach, consensus can quickly be achieved.

And what is the root cause of no budget? House or senate? Well as you know it was the senate who never submitted the budget for a vote. It was a failure of leadership on Reid's part - not the house. And ultimately it was a failure of leadership of Obama for not fixing this problem. Clinton had a house and senate in Republican hands and he managed to get things done - Obama can't get one thing passed even with the senate in his pocket.

Don't you mean the senate has abdicated its authority? How did Clinton manage to successfully pass legislation with a house and senate controlled by the evil Republicans and yet Obama with the senate in his pocket (and the house for two years) has not passed anything of meaning?

First: Three of the four budgets President Obama submitted have been passed: 2010 (July 2009), 2011 (on April 15, 2011), and 2012 (on November 18, 2011 and Dec 23, 2011) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget). The 2013 budget has not been passed, but why is that surprising? IMHO, both parties were seeking a "mandate of the people" to pass their budget proposals and uninterested in reaching a compromise. If you want to blame only Democrats for that, please see The Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/01/fixing-debt?fs...).
Second: You assume my statement "Congress abdicated its authority" means this Congress. It makes sense, but was not meant in the bitter partisan manner you suggest. I meant historically, Congress abdicated its authority in the early 1900s to Theodore Roosevelt and has never tried to regain it. This is not a simple story and plays a larger part in breaking the power of the dictatorial Speakers like Joseph Cannon and concentrating power in the executive branch. Please refer again to the US Constitution, Article 1 section 7, then Article 2 and cite specifically where it says the president submits a budget or wrangles Congress. Obviously a custom has arisen, but the law has not changed. You have every right to blame it on Democratic leadership, others will blame Republican intransigence.
Third: The issue of "[President] Obama with the [S]enate in his pocket," was cited above, (http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/12/11/166993494/episode-422-schoolho...).
Finally: I wish to address your comparisons of Presidents Clinton and Obama. To answer the first question: President Clinton shut down the government twice to pass budgets closer to what he wanted. Do you believe President Obama should adopt this tactic? What about President Bush? FY2002-2009 budgets mostly passed, but wikipedia makes an interesting statement, "Figures shown in this article do not reflect the actual appropriations by Congress for Fiscal Year..." If you recall what would happen, President Bush would submit a bare-bones budget that was acceptable to Congress then submit "supplemental spending bills," for deficit spending like the Iraq War and Medicare part D. Do you believe President Obama should adopt this tactic? If he did adopt one of these tactics, would you complain that President Obama uses heavy-handed tactics to shove budgets down our throats or irresponsibly hides spending to make his budgets more palatable as both of those presidents were accused at the time?
Edited to correct references.

Four years ago Obama had limited choice as the nation was facing down the barrel of economic crisis. He tried reaching out and collaborating with the republicans but did not succeed. America is in a different condition now. It is close to sorting out its energy security, is not expected by the world to be a defender of freedom and democracy every where, its economy on better footing and is slowly regaining its innovative spirit. This is the time for Obama to strike and offer no compromise to the far right. If he manages that he will be regarded as one of the great presidents and his inaugural address sets the right tone.

Four years ago he decided to go after healthcare instead of the economic crisis. He used his two years controlling the government to ram it down our throats. Now that he, Pelosi and Reid have their legacy they can get to the boring stuff. They are all self serving at the expense of millions of jobs. And you voted for him again. Good luck with that...

Obama needs to negotiate but compromising in his first term didn't work. Obama gave and the republicans pushed for more. It's past time to take a stand and then negotiate when the other side is also willing to compromise. Hopefully they'll reach an agreement that's better than either of their positions (which shouldn't be too hard).

The Economist writes:
"It was a powerful speech, but how this ends well, I struggle to see."
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So it would be better for President Obama to spend the next four years appeasing climate change deniers? Appeasing the arithmetic madness of no tax increases? Appeasing gun nuts?
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He tried appeasement in the first term.
It didn't work. It merely emboldened the bullies.
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This is his last opportunity. Americans like a President who has the courage of his convictions, even if they do not agree with all of them.
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Maybe he will not succeed, but at least he will have fought for things that matter. How much worse to tell your grandchildren that when you had the opportunity you didn't even dare to try.

Bullies? Really? The senate and the presidency has been in his hands literally the entire time he has been in office. 2/3 of the government has been in his control with 100% of the government in his control for his first two years. I honestly don't understand all the rhetoric in these strings talking about how generous Obama was to the evil, soulless Republicans reaching across the isle. Honestly you guys need to get your collective heads out of the sand and stop drinking your own kool-aid. It is now 5 years after Bush left and yet I still see his name mentioned here. Again, 2/3 of the govt controlled by the Democrats.

"How did today's speech set out the process by which Mr Obama plans to govern?"
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Apparently, he plans to govern by not compromising. That will probably work out rather badly for his agenda.
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Perhaps Obama needs to listen to himself. "We cannot mistake absolutism for principle."

As opposed to the compromise he tried in his first four years?
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Hell, "Obamacare" itself was one gigantic compromise with Republicans. A Republican idea, created by a Republican think-tank, pushed in to action first by a Republican governor-- and then when a Democrat tries it, it's attacked like a child amongst hungry wolves.
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To continue the analogy... the child survived, and is now grown up. It finds itself not wanting to take any more of the wolves' shit right now.

The first four years were about Obama's underlying idealism and patriotism, *and* a belief in the Republicans' underlying idealism and patriotism. I think he's saying that in his second term, the second part of that equation won't be there.

the Affordable Care Act as well as many other pieces of legislation in 2009 and 2010 were compromise with moderate Democrats, notably the "Blue Dogs". They have since have become nearly extinct and replaced by Republicans....
In regards to it being a "republican idea". yes, a version of it was implemented on a state level and deemed a failure by many republicans, especially in regards to costs. So the state failure was to be extended to a federal level? Even if you disagree with me saying it was failure on a state level, this still goes back to State vs Federal state's right issue because what may work on a state level may actually fail on a federal level.

Your house is in bad shape, you hire a contractor to fix it.
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Are you willing to give contractor the power to move furniture?
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If you are not willing to, your house will never be fixed. Don't blame the contractor.

"But if you believe that getting anything done in the next four years will require the support of at least some moderate Republicans, it is hard to see how Mr Obama's inaugural address will have helped much."

I'm not entirely certain that there is anything Obama COULD have said to help garner the support of Republicans, moderate or otherwise. A single speech is not likely to change their minds on things which they feel strongly about.

He wants the public to make itself heard - the Republicans may not care what Obama wants, but they do care about what voters want. Obama's taking a gamble that more people will support his positions than those of the hard-core Republicans. Organizations like the NRA have been able to get support in Congress for their ever-more radical positions by providing money for campaigns. They weren't particularly successful in the past election in getting people actually elected, so if voters start making their support for background checks and so forth known, we may see some progress on gun control, for one example.

OK, ok. But this independent thought he sounded condescending. I'm looking for a way to vote against Republicans without giving consent to a big increase in collectivism and I thought voting for Obama was a pretty good formula. Now I kinda wish I'd written in John McCain.

I call BS on this. Republicans disagree with Obama. Strongly. However, we're willing to come to terms with the political reality and compromise. Obama is not. He opposes all spending cuts of significance, even in the face of historic debt accumulation.

I don't think you need to worry about any big increase in collectivism - won't happen. But I also think Obama was right to move to the left a priori. If your opponent has moved into outer space on the right and you are somehow bound to be splitting the difference, you should stake out your own starting point accordingly. Not giving half of it away first and then start negotiating, like he did last time around.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's #1 Priority: Deny Obama a Third Presidential Term.
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Republicans need to grow up and behave like adults.
This 'Tantrum Thing' has not helped themselves or the country.

Except that the Republicans in Congress, having been (re)elected, may thing that it has helped them personally. Even if it has been bad for their party collectively, it has worked for the people doing the voting in Congress. Makes it hard to convince them that anything needs to change.

with your user name, I would have thought you would do a better job connecting the dots to explain why things are the way they are.
Instead you just single out one party as if they came to this conclusion randomly, when in fact the current situation has been in the making since 1986 or there abouts. memory getting fuzzy.

Mr. Obama at his worst is preferable to Mr. George W. Bush at his best. The president's speech was inspirational -- and meant to be so. But, it is also nonsense. "Equality" is popular goal only when your neighbor has more. It is unpopular when you have more than your neighbor. So, here are some areas of inequality that Mr. Obama will not touch:

* He won't insist that those receiving public assistance, especially those who have made foolish personal decisions, work equally hard with those who take responsibility for their own lives.
* He won't insist that men live as long as women and have as high a net worth as women.
* He won't insist that the financial burden of payments after divorce be equal between the former spouses.
* He won't insist that the right of anyone with human DNA to not be killed is one of absolute equality -- such as those who are not yet born.
* He won't insist on equality of taxation for corporations such as Apple and corporations such as churches, universities and colleges and "charitable" foundations.
* He won't insist that all obey the laws equally -- such as immigrants.
* He won't insist that EVERYONE be equal and pay some share of taxation via the income tax.
* He won't insist that the younger generation be equal with present Seniors by having their SS pensions adequately funded.

You can add your own.

I voted for Mr. Obama and heartily endorse his emphasis on the Safety Net and amnesty for Illegals.

A. Andros, you wrote, " 'Equality' is popular goal only when your neighbor has more. It is unpopular when you have more than your neighbor."
Actually, nothing could be more short-sighted, and for so many reasons.
First, the world is so much more fluid today than it was previously in terms of both upward AND downward social mobility. We are seeing millionaires suddenly becoming penniless with just a few bad trades on a stock exchange. Any person with wealth who thinks 'equality' is unimportant simply because they have more money today better make sure their wealth manager is not a clone of Bernie Madoff or that their broker was not secretly working on another trade that was actually betting against their position as a client.
Second, equality is not just something that has to do with those who have considerable sums of money having to hand out their hard-earned cash to those who do not have much. It is about the power that often is tied to such sums of money – and the problems such systems create. Certainly, there are who think trying to achieve some level of 'equality' is unnecessary as they argue that constraining the movers and shakers of this world is a big mistake. For example, the far right has tried its best for more than two decades to get people to believe that now that the USSR and communism is gone, all forms of federal government and public security are the real threat to freedom as the right wing fringes of the GOP get in bed with ultra-wealthy donors who want to dismantle all forms of regulation and while they also side continually with the NRA and against police officers, who are arguing that there are just too many guns on the street. In some ways, of course, the right has a partially valid point as citizens should always be asking whether government really needs to solve a problem as well as ensuring that a public security system does not transform itself into a police state. However, while they may side with the man in the Ferrari who believes he should not be ticketed by some lowly "obviously corrupt" police officer for speeding, would they also think that same driver should not be arrested after he just ran over one of their family members while trying to go through every red light to get to the golf course? I am sure a person – even a fairly wealthy one – will want someone to be held accountable if their loved ones were run over, or if they were taken advantage of by someone who just happens to be wealthier than them. Sometimes, you may find that a society that has a problem maintaining equality also has a problem maintaining justice within that society.
Finally, please keep in mind that the same concept of 'equality' has also been the basis of the concept of "human rights" that the far right often derided and claimed was either meaningless or an obstacle to the US power around the world. However now, as emerging markets and countries such as China – filled with people who are not American, not Anglo-Saxon or white, not Christian and not beholden to democratic principles – move quickly up the economic and wealth (i.e., power) ladder, there are some in the US who now finally realize that the human rights may indeed become very important. Sure, America did not care too much about human rights being denied to someone in China or Brazil when the US was light years ahead of those nations in terms of wealth and power (including military power). But given that many economists expect China to become the world's biggest economy sometime in this century, I get the feeling that those who thumbed their nose at human rights and the concept of equality will pray that Chinese leaders do not act towards Americans the way some US leaders did to other nations' populations.
In Italy, they have a proverb that basically says, "The world is like a staircase. Some go up and some go down." I certainly advise anyone who characterizes "equality" as being good for some but bad for others to remember to look at which direction the staircase they are standing on is going before they call for less equality.

There are reasons why men live less than women: the biggest one is smoking, the second is alcohol consumption. There's also men's inclination to risky behavior caused by testosterone and the fact that women are genetically slightly stronger than men. You should educate yourself more on the topic before implying that men are victims because you live less. Much is due to you own bad choices and behavior. Smoking kills, alcoholism kills, speeding and drunk driving kills, violence and fighting other men can kill, and they are all more masculine territories.

There is an article on the Economist that educates people on the matter well. It sums up all I've been hearing about the gender gap in longevity in the rich world. The proof that it's mostly due to bad lifestyle choices is that as women start drinking and smoking (and misbehaving) more, and men less, the gender gap has shrinked. As a conservative you probably believe in responsibility, right? So how about taking responsibility about you own shorter lifespan instead of playing victym?http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21569362-rich-world...
You should read it, unless you are one of those conservatives who think only FOX News is fair and balanced and the mainstream media is dominated by liberal feminist and gay bias.
Ps: I've just returned from the hospital, I was visiting my childhood friend and first boyfriend, we are the same age, he's dying due to his crack addiction. We're both 27, but I'll live longer and have a much bigger net worth because "I've had it easy" and decided to study and work hard while he was killing himself while everybody around him BEGGED him to stop.

Not to mention my second cousin died in a motorcycle accident when he was 22. He was speeding too much. Now, of course it's anecdotal evidence, but can't you tell such reckless behavior are more related to the male gender? Can't you tell those things happen to men everywhere? Why don't you check statistics on drunk driving, speeding, alcoholism, smoking, drug addiction, violent and criminal behavior, suicide (much due to drug collateral effect) to check the gender difference? I'm sure they will tell you the whole story. I'm sure if those two boys I've mentioned were women, there's a huge probability they would have lived longer. My ex-boyfriend's sister is healthy as bull, and I don't think their different destiny has anything to do with any type of "inequality" unless inequality of wisdom and maturity. Now, you can argue whatever you want, it won't change the fact that as long as boys and men behave more recklessly and as long as scientist don't find a way to make males genetically more resistant, we'll live more. There's no foul play here. You have no righ to complain, all you can do is try to change men's mentality (which is being done and it's actually working).

"He won't insist that the financial burden of payments after divorce be equal between the former spouses."

Say what? Divorce law is a matter for states. At least in California, equal division of assets gained during marriage are to be divided equally. If daddies ended up caring for kiddies as much as mommies, then generally payments would go to daddies, but we know most men are crap at child rearing, and stuff it onto the moms. In general, women end of much worse off economically after divorce then men, who end up generally much better off.

I agree with you. Equality is relative , not absolute. And he won't insist that the children from the poor families with non-background have the equal opportunities of the rich ones with extraordinary background in education and looking for jobs. But what he can do is to do his best efforts to shorten the gap between them. Persident Obama's inaugural address is inspiring and full of enthusiasm. We hope he can give a satisfying answer sheet after his second term, which will be as much splendid as his speech.

Aren't you "blaming the victim?" And, as a card carrying liberal, how can you do such a thing? Aren't men "heroes" because they manage to cope with a society that FORCES them into such "bad choices?" Perhaps the future of the Democratic Party lies with people who made bad choices: Gays with AIDS, Single Mothers and smoking, drunken, violent men. If we are to be so self-righteous on men, shouldn't dumb gays who contract AIDS be allowed to die off? And single mothers starve with their spawn?

But, abortion was also "a matter for the states?" If the government can intervene via Roe v Wade then why can't it intervene re Harpy v. Adam? "Most men are crap at child rasing" . . . gosh, what is your date for that statement? One thing about even the worst fathers -- they don't murder their children the way women do when they abort, now do they? If women ARE worse off economically after divorce . . . well, that's pretty strong evidence, isn't it, that the only reason they lived better previous to divorce was from hanging onto Sugar Daddy.

Ah, but the children from "poor families" are entitled to a free education for thirteen years. They will be chauffered each morning from their front door to the school door and back home again. They are offered free books, free music lessons, free counseling, free help in applying for college, free athletics, in fact, free everything . . . and as often as not, especially, if they are black and Hispanic, they will drop out at sixteen and wonder why their life sucks. Enablers from the Left will tell them it was "the Rich ones" who sabotaged their lives. And . . . they'll believe it!

Not at all, T775. I just will not repeat, over and over, the bromides and PC slogans with which many of the rest you employ as a substitute for thinking.

FYI, I have been married to the same loving woman for nearly a half-century.

I don't care who gets preggars. If you have an abortion you have killed your own child. Men may be jerks -- but they do not (generally!) kill their own children. That is a female thing. (If you have any contradictory evidence I would like to read it.)

As for abandoning their offspring, that is something I cannot imagine. I adore children. But . . . . why is it that a woman can decide not to be a mother but a man cannot decide he does not want to be a father? Mom says, "No biggie . . . I just kill the little bastard." Does the father have that choice?

Time was, both parents married and raised the child in a stable setting. But, in the days of the liberated woman the man owes the woman precisely what the woman owes the man -- NOTHING.

I don't think this is the way things should be. But, it is the way things are. And, it is that way largely because of feminism.

And, after all, T775, isn't this full equality? I owe you nothing, you owe me nothing. We mate and move on. You're pregnant? Get rid of it -- you can, you know.

"Men may be jerks -- but they do not (generally!) kill their own children."
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Yeh, check back on the history of men when they determined who could live and die in the family they very legally owned.
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" I adore children. But . . . . why is it that a woman can decide not to be a mother but a man cannot decide he does not want to be a father?"
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It's called pregnancy. I am all for father's wanting to have children to can impregnate themselves and bear them. The reality of biology is women have all the burden of bearing children from conception to birth, at the risk of life and limb, and unless the male chooses to be responsible all the risk of raising them.
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To _demand_ that a woman carry a child to term by male desire is untenable and frankly when a couple breaks up there are just too many frigg'n power plays by both parties that there is no good solution.
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"Time was, both parents married and raised the child in a stable setting. But, in the days of the liberated woman the man owes the woman precisely what the woman owes the man -- NOTHING."
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Ah. So. Bromides. In the happy days of yore when all was sweetness and light and men and women were the perfect Ozzie and Harriet. Yeh, and you have a bridge to sell me.
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"I abhor this kind of thinking. But, admit it -- this IS equality."
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I will point out that it is you who are sweeping over millions of lives judging how and what individuals are going through. Yes, there are bastards and beetches on all sides, but let's get real here, things aren't any different than when Cicero was alive, before him or after.

Ozzie and Harriet? Please don't inflict your impoverished imagination on me. I grew up just after the war ended and attended a school with 2000 students. The ONLY kids I knew without a father were those whose Dad had never come back from war. That was the way things were -- if you don't believe it, the reason is you are too young to remember it and lack empathy to imagine it.

Also -- my understanding is that those 50 million abortions were all solicited by women. If any men underwent abortions since Roe, please list them. And, then, I have a bridge to see YOU.

Killing is killing. You want to rationalize killing, I can't stop you. There is not a biologist alive who, when allowed to examine the DNA of a zygot one day after conception, can say other than, "Yes. That is a member of the genus and species Homo Sapiens Sapiens. In other words -- it is a human being." Even 1000 years after death the intact DNA will proclaim, "This was HUMAN.

Abortion kills a member of the human family. This is not a matter of opinion but a matter of genetics. Now, one can come up with all kinds of reasons for killing humanity - the Nazis were great at this sort of thing -- but killing is killing.

If you can prove that 1) the unborn infant is not human and 2) that human is not dead after the abortion then I must go over to your position.

" The ONLY kids I knew without a father were those whose Dad had never come back from war. That was the way things were -- if you don't believe it, the reason is you are too young to remember it and lack empathy to imagine it."
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Ah yes, but women didn't have much choice in the matter, and neither did the men. You got her preggers (or she said it was yours), you got hitched, and if you balked _her_ father brought along a shotgun to make sure you did the honorable thing. Or the problem was taken care of my the women folk quiet like.
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Besides, it's pretty obvious you grew up in privilege. Rich folk, or those with pretenses to wealth, ignored what was going on in the great unwashed.
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"Abortion kills a member of the human family."
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"If you can prove that 1) the unborn infant is not human and 2) that human is not dead after the abortion then I must go over to your position."
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I am not going into a rehash of this debate, which has been waged by people back and forth forever. It is unresolvable because people disagree on the definition of "human" being applied.
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Back in the day (St Augustine) -- EVEN then a fetus was considered 'human', but uninvested _flesh_ and it was worthy of some moral consideration when the soul vested at around 40 (boys) or 90 (girls) days.
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Again, until men undergo pregnancy, I have to say the reality is butt out, it's none of your g**dam business.
PS And lest we forget, men haven't really changed their habits with regard to buying sex. What ever happens to the products of those little unions, hmmm?

While it is still rare, this was a shocking statistic for me - the leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide. While by no means are all, or even a majority of males violent, they are disproportionately more so than females, and vastly so.

I grew up privileged? Typical liberal presumption. My father worked in a mill -- came home every day in his khaki uniform covered with dust. (It eventually killed him -- occupational disease.) Day laborer.

No . . . there is no disagreement on what is "human." It is a matter of biological speciation. DNA is identifiably "human" or it is not. If you want to "disagree" with those readings then you can join the Fundamentalists.

Men do not undergo pregnancy . . . you finally got one right. But, the death of the baby affects the baby, the father, the grandparents, its prospective friends and all the rest of us whose lives might have been enriched by this absolutely unique human being. So a woman carries a baby . . . BFD. The death of that baby affects ALL of us and not just the container it came in.

What is your point? We shoot all the men -- in order to avoid violence?

Hey! I've got an idea! Let's just shoot the blacks! I mean, look at the statistics (the "shocking" ones.) Black males are far, far more likely to commit homicides than whites. Therefore, if we want to protect all women -- kill the Negroes!

"Typical liberal presumption."
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Typical 'conservative' presumption is that I am 'liberal'. You people that want to stick everyone else into convenient boxes are really tiresome and dull. Guys who had mill jobs were middle class. You had hot and cold running water and a school to go to. Middle class.
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"DNA is identifiably "human" or it is not. If you want to "disagree" with those readings then you can join the Fundamentalists."
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WTF? Re-read what I wrote, because right now it seems very much like you've interpreted what I wrote to fit your presumptions. Again tiresome and dull.
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"Men do not undergo pregnancy . . . you finally got one right. But, the death of the baby affects the baby, the father, the grandparents, its prospective friends and all the rest of us whose lives might have been enriched by this absolutely unique human being. "
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Oh give it up. You are aware that approx 17% of all conceptions fail to implant in the uterine wall? Then there are miscarriages before anyone is aware of a pregnancy. You're projecting your own situation onto the whole of humanity then judging them by the standards you would like to imagine.
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How much do all those deaths affect the family? What of all the products of prostitution?

Obama has learned from his political incompetence in 2010. When your opponents are fighting hard, if you choose not to fight, you lose. He will call the Republican's bluff. I'm sure they remember very well how the public reacted to Gingrich and his government shutdowns.

Let's hope Obama's allies stand with him in this fight. There is no way he can go it alone and sometimes I don't think his Democratic colleagues in congress have the stomach to engage in the fight to wrench America into the 21st century.

Maybe his speech was hyper-partisan, but I have to say that after decades of seeing Democrats get beat on by Republicans, it's good to see one finally hit back. One could make an argument that no matter what he said, they'd still act the same. Might as well throw a few punches if you can.

This victim mentality is going to ruin your party. Who was the President before Bush? A democrat. Who was the President before Reagan? A democrat. Democrats win just as often as not. Treating yourselves like victims will only lead you to take a no-compromise attitude that will be disastrous for our country and your party.

BO is overplaying his hand. This will backfire. Tides of opinion are slowly starting to turn as the president continues to shun personal accountability and excellence, destroying incentives, and rewarding mediocrity.

Very fair question indeed. I took a random sample my inner circle of highly privileged friends.

My comment was based on early polling results regarding questions surrounding the pres's stance on various issues surrounding fiscal cliff and debt ceiling negotiations. Interestingly, taking the issues separately, polls are more decisively trending -vely, but taken collectively he fairs a bit better due to populist appeal though trend still -ve. Leaving fiscal cliff with what he wanted while being unyielding on debt ceiling (he himself is being disingenuous with rhetoric as he previously voted against an increase as a Senator citing debt of $8.2trn at the time as a deterrent) without acknowledging entitlements is hurting him with independents and sparking increase in sympathizers with GOP stance.

Obama won on the debt ceiling because not defaulting is the right thing to do.

Really though, I'm wondering about this "acknowledging entitlements" thought. Why should a Democrat be the first to propose an entitlement cut when there hasn't been a single plan from the GOP to cut entitlements at any time in the next 10 years? Most of their budgets have even bumped up Medicare spending. There's no politically plausible, reasonably certain, way to cut the growth rate of healthcare spending, and any law that Congress passes in 2013 promising to cut benefits for seniors in 2023 can just be undone by Congress in 2023, just like the doc fix is now. You think seniors are going to get less politically powerful over the next decade as their numbers swell?

So true. I seem to remember him saying he would not allow congress to kick the can on the fiscal cliff issue, yet he did just that. An no media outlet has called him on it. They just reason it off by ignoring it.

@jouris,
The 2010 election hints at what lay in store for Obama in 2014. It was a very close presidential election, yet we see no sign of compromise out of this White House. Keep in mind that a good chunk of liberal voters do not bother to show up to the polls in a non-presidential election year.

In the world,there aren't so much free lunch for everybody.Every penny need get a return as investors.

If it is ture that some rich donors put up the bulk of funding for the event(president
's inauguration ceremony),it will be doomed to lead to a public anger and scepticism widely.After all,it is a very serious corruption,even will been sentenced to death,at least in China.

Were you there?? I was, and most of the people were perfectly normal, middle-class people - and I actually did see quite a few not-very-rich looking people. And guess what -- EVERYBODY had a great time!!

He may be ready to fight, but most Americans aren't. They're giving up on national politics and putting their hopes in local and state issues. Obama is the bridge to a new politics of pragmatism and results oriented politics. He is just putting a punctuation mark at the end of an era of civil rights. America will be a much more pragmatic and sedate society in the decades ahead.

This is the second or third article I've seen this where the legitimacy of the republican majority is called into question by suggestions of "gerrymandering" implying that whereas obama's electoral victory is legitimate, the republicans are less so. Is this an Economist thing or is this a Lexington thing?

MSNBC has been pushing the gerrymandering story, and it crops up on CNN and PBS. Seems this year the stark difference between in several states between what won at the district/delegation level and the Democrat win at the presidential elections is raising eyebrows.
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I can't say I am surprised. I thought gerrymandering was serious threat to our Republican form of government.
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I personally think there should be a push for a nonpartisan commission to employ modern optimization mapping technologies to create districts that are balanced, compact and as respectful of historical boundaries as possible.
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The basic answer is that the Democrats received a million more house votes yet got less representatives.

The idea is that whoever gets the most votes wins the office. Barack Obama did get the most votes (in terms of pure votes cast) and he won the office.
No question of legitimacy.

The Republicans got a million less votes for House candidates, but still won the House because the legislative districts are gerrymandered and because Democrats are bunched into the cities. akin to what happens if someone loses the popular vote but wins the electoral college as president. Thus being seen as "less legitimate."

This gerrymandering was explicitly the Republican strategy as detailed here in a report from the Republican State Leadership Committee.

"2010 State Elections: REDMAP’s Execution
As the 2010 Census approached, the RSLC began planning for the subsequent election cycle, formulating a strategy to keep or win Republican control of state legislatures with the largest impact on congressional redistricting as a result of reapportionment. That effort, the REDistricting MAjority Project (REDMAP), focused critical resources on legislative chambers in states projected to gain or lose congressional seats in 2011 based on Census data.

The rationale was straightforward: Controlling the redistricting process in these states would have the greatest impact on determining how both state legislative and congressional district boundaries would be drawn. Drawing new district lines in states with the most redistricting activity presented the opportunity to solidify conservative policymaking at the state level and maintain a Republican stronghold in the U.S. House of Representatives for the next decade."

gerrymandering gave Republicans more seats in the house but with less of the popular vote. Obama won the electoral college and the popular vote. That's the legitimacy problem bud - i'm not going to find a link to paste here. It's very easy to look up for yourself.

But on 47.8 voted for the Republicans, luckily they were able to rig things in the house so it didn't matter. From that same report.

"REDMAP’s effect on the 2012 election is plain when analyzing the results: Pennsylvanians cast 83,000 more votes for Democratic U.S. House candidates than their Republican opponents, but elected a 13-5 Republican majority to represent them in Washington; Michiganders cast over 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republicans, but still elected a 9-5 Republican delegation to Congress. Nationwide, Republicans won 54 percent of the U.S. House seats, along with 58 of 99 state legislative chambers, while winning only 8 of 33 U.S. Senate races and carrying only 47.8 percent of the national presidential vote."

Your stats are irrelevant. What makes the republican majority legitimate is that it was done according to the rule of law, just as what makes the president's victory legitimate is that it was done in accordance with the rule of law.

You might have a better way of determining electoral boundaries than current law but that doesn't make the republican majority illegitimate as the economist likes to insinuate.

And here I thought representatives where suppose to represent their local districts. And considering how populations vary in and between states of course some districts in some states will have way more voters than districts in other states because Congress capped the number of representatives allowed...

How silly of me, I should have known all along that the house of representatives was suppose to reflect not the individual area where they were voted but on a national vote.

It's a push back against the rhetoric that "voters chose divided government" when the actual vote totals suggest that voters wanted a slim democratic majority that was denied through the willful (and lawful) use of redistricting.

If Republicans want to say "We control the House because we drew the districts to marginalize democratic voters" that's fine and legitimate.

But that's not how they phrase it. They say they have a "popular mandate" in the House. Which is empirically and by their own admission, false.

The republicans won the state elections of 2010 and control most state governments. Much of this is a consequence of obamas victory in 2008. The republicans control 29 governors mansions which cannot be gerrymandered. As Obama controls the us army, and was asked to by the electorate, the electorate asked the republicans to control electoral districting. Such is politics...

"Reading the economist you would think he had a commanding victory."
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Not surprised. Media outlets tend to focus on the electoral votes.
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But to be fair, Reagan won by something like 50.7 percent or 50.8 percent in 1980. That win was described as a landslide and later depicted as the Reagan Revolution (taking into account the subsequent legislation on taxation and defense spending).
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So I wouldn't be surprised if Democratic operators and image maker are just taking a page from Michael Deaver's book and working on feeding/cultivating an narrative to the media.

If the Democrats want to do the right thing, it doesn't matter if its for the wrong reason. Similar to how Beijing cleaned up alot of its air pollution in the summer of 2008, not because gave a crap about lung disease or their people's health, but because they didn't want to look smogladen with the eyes of the world on them. But in either case, the result is the same.

It is not gerrymandering to follow the Constitution. Our country was designed to give out-sized power to small states, in order to keep them from being overwhelmed by the large-population states that are now democratic bastions. To put it plainly, what is right for NYC is not always right for North Dakota. The Constitution thus forces large states to consider the interests of small states in decision making. Thus the President needs to compromise with, and not bully, his opponents.

No, the small state/large state compromise was laid out in the Connecticut Compromise. Connecticut was apart of the northern non-slave states and was considered small compared to the larger onces like Virginia, New York and PA. The 3/5 compromise came after the the Connecticut Compromise and while that obviously had flaws to the modern readers eyes, it wasn't the reason for a bicameral or portionaly representation legislature.

Your justification of why republicans won a majority is soley depended on the metric of total votes nationwide to a system that is based on proportional representation on a local level. You are comparing apples to oranges. Just because California racked up large majorities for democrats while North Dakota won for Republicans is not justification to call them illegitmate. You may argue that the system is bad, but the system worked as intented.

But the issue here isn't in small vs large states (that's in the Senate). This is urban/rural within states where the goal is to shift districts so that you get a lot of districts that are 60-40 in favor of your party and a few that are 99-1 in favor of the other party.

If Pennsylvania and Michigan rack up large majorities for House Dems, you'd think that their delegation in the house should be mostly Dems, instead of 2-1 against.

So you suggest that house reps should be elected statewide? Why have a bicameral legisture? Gerrymandering is never a good thing, but as has been said, it been around a long time and both parties do it. Furthermore, the same issues within the connectict compromise still apply. You will have one set of the population possibly dominating the other, only in today's world it would be city vs. rural.

Agreed that both parties have abused gerrymandering. I blame the Whigs. I think states should have a non-partisan, technocratic commission to handle the line drawing, but I'm mostly just pointing out how weird the math gets. "One population dominating the other" is what a majority vote is. I think any representative system should strive to match the preferences of the population as closely as possible.

"It was fascinating to see Mr Obama sketch out his vision of how individualism and American risk-taking need a progressive safety net to thrive."
America did not achieve its greatness with the help of a "progressive safety net". What Mr. Obama may not realize is that many people may not be as bright, ambitious or hard-working as he is, and as such, may be content to simply roll around in the comfort of that safety net, and never try too hard. If the percentage of people enjoying the comforts of that net becomes a voting majority, America should look to join France, then Greece, and then become worse than either, as the scale of America's indebtedness is enough to dig it a frighteningly deep grave.
Helping people into circumstances where they feel they don't need to help themselves is not helping people to anything good.
All people of conscience are concerned for those who are are in need. But if the group who are declared to be "in need" expands to become a majority, a collapse is guaranteed.

That safety net is the reason that you're a moderately successful person with an internet connection and not some 75 year old noodle vendor pushing his cart on the streets of Manila. Cause I guarantee you that noodle vendor works harder than you or I have in our lives and he gets nothing, because his country lacks a progressive safety net.

Universal healthcare is something that successful countries like Israel and Taiwan embrace as well.

It doesn't take a genius to see that the absurd American system of tying health insurance to individual employers impedes labor mobility. That people will make more rational decisions about employment if they don't fear that the health of their children is held hostage by their job.

nationalization of the health care system would have been better than the distortions that medicare/aid did to the health care system. Same thing with the Affordable Care Act. Ultimately these programs led to nationalization. i rather go straight to the final form now rather than bankrupt the country in the process of getting there.

Interesting that a poster by the name of "New Conservative" is disagreeing with a poster named "J Kemp"…just wanted to point that out first as it oddly shows what the GOP is up against when trying to unify its followers and message. ;)

That said, I agree with New Conservative – health care should never have been tied to employers. Americans are seeing that now as costs soar and jobs become scarce. The problem in America – and those on the far right that demand American exceptionalism have exacerbated the problem – is that leaders often are unwilling to consider other models for solving problems that can be seen and are working fine in other nations. The Internet and blogs are finally helping, however, top develop this conversation better than Washington has for several decades. As right wing pundits railed against national healthcare and argued it was not just a bad system but would ruin any economy, readers from around the world in places such as Germany, the UK, Taiwan, Canada and other fairly wealthy, stable economies replied in the online comment pages that the right wing pundits were flat out wrong. In the past, often all a anti-national health care politician had to do to scare Americans was to remind Canada had national healthcare and that the US was not Canada. Now, Americans were finally realizing that so many advanced and healthy economies have it, begging the question why America still does not.

I would point out Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zeeland and Switzerland who in the conservative Heritage Foundation's opinion are the top five countries for economic freedom all have nationalized health care systems (or in Hong Kong's case, simply government provided). In fact all have pretty robust social safety nets.

"But if the group who are declared to be "in need" expands to become a majority," etc.
First of all, whether people in need "feel the need to help themselves" is irrelevant. They can't. That's what being in need means.
Second, in developed countries, people in need are indeed a minority. But people AT SUBSTANTIAL RISK of becoming in need are now a majority, growing both in numbers and in self-awareness. Risk-taking has been outsourced from boardrooms to the shop floor, without its rewards of course. Recognizing and alleviating (not overturning) this long-term trend with minimal safety netting is hardly the stuff of radical thought. It should be in fact an objective for far-thinking investors with a view to a plush, peaceful future for their own children.

That was probably the intent behind the ACA. Install a terrible form of almost-universal healthcare that makes it easier to argue for a transition to true universal healthcare a little way down the road.

You seem to have decided to make my comment about the safety net a comment solely about health care, which it is decidedly not. Some further comments on the health care issue at the bottom of this post.
The safety net in America, while emotionally appealing, is a much wider structure than health care coverage, and growing wider every day. It is also engendering a culture of "you don't have to take care of yourself because we'll take care of you" which is pure moral hazard. "You don't need to learn to fish, because we will give you a fish!" Such a culture is not good for people. Fair and equal access to opportunity is good for people. Fair and equal access to education is good for people. Stopping the government's wars on its people -- like its brutal and inherently genocidal "war on drugs" would be good for its people too. American government's growing over-involvement in every imaginable facet of Americans' lives is going to spell the end of a thriving America. Government agencies are not capable of managing people's lives successfully. All such agencies do is breed dependency and mediocrity.
Now a few comments on health care in America. Certainly all Americans need and deserve equal access to good health care. That said, America's economy and people would be much better off if they were not being looted by what the current American "health care" (sic) system has devolved into -- an extractive industry more concerned with money than health. In all the health care debate, nobody seems to be willing to question what is actually going on on the ground in American health care -- vastly higher costs for a discernibly lower standard of care, pouring vst sums of money into the coffers of the most overpaid health care "professionals" in the world, while systematically limiting the supply of doctors to one of the lowest ratios of doctors per capita in the developed world. So odd that nobody calls this out, and instead all focus on the emotional issue of fair access to this devolved system.

Actually, vis a vis healthcare, I've been calling for Single Payer for three years now.

As for the safety net, you seem to think it's easy to live off it. While moral hazard does exist, and some programs like Social Security disability do get abused. But I beg you, go travel in some country where people are actually poor.

The safety net is one of those thing that you don't notice until you spend time in a society without one.

New Conservative, you are rather condescending in your assumptions as to others' lack of knowledge and experience, such as "...go travel in a some country where people are actually poor." Do you think all posters here are children still blowing the ink dry on recently issued diplomas? Do you think anyone here who is not you could not possibly have observed anything which you have observed? You must be quite young.

What I see is that many of the posters here ARE children still blowing that ink dry, and they do not have decades of experience in the real world, not just traveling to all of its corners, poor and rich, honest and corrupt, safe and dangerous, but also in helping to develop and raise others -- employees, colleagues, and one's own children -- and seeing the comparative consequences of breeding dependency vs. self-reliance and independence.

Mr. Obama is playing to his constituents, who are not people who, on average, have great experience in building sustainable social and economic structures. He has taken a populist approach, appealing to those groups who are most lacking in real experience in the real world. His voters are the youngest, least experienced, most emotionally approachable, and most dependent of all the demographic groups in America. Those who have dealt with the cold hard realities of life, economics, government's chronic failures to protect or help people, government's penchant for exploiting its people in order to grow government, and the many impacts of the many forms of human frailty, are deeply concerned about a man who takes populist approaches over those grounded in reality and experience. He is not seeing or addressing the real problems in America, he is simply plucking the emotional chords of well-meaning, and highly inexperienced groups of voters.

What he will do is continue to undermine that which has given strength to America, on the claimed basis of "fairness". He is also apparently quite blind to where the real unfairness is in the American economy. That is in the obscene levels of economic extractions which are permitted to the heavily government-enabled "professions". These are attorneys, doctors, and most in the banking and securities industries. This crowd is the crowd who have been raping and pillaging in America for now decades, at the expense of the demographic groups Mr. Obama counts as his voters. There are also key industries who are farming Americans like animals. Telecoms companies, banks, insurance companies and large hospital groups are four of the biggest industry offenders. Unions as a group are also exploiting Americans, having strangled and killed many of America's industries and companies.
Meanwhile, Mr. Obama however, seems focused on what got him elected --populist politics, which to him seems to imply that unions are "good", not killers of jobs. The lenses through which he views America do not seem to be the right lenses for America, just the right lenses to get him elected. That is unfortunate for America.

You speak about sustainability, but on the other side of the spectrum, the Republican party is dependent on social and economic structures that completely ignore all negative externalities, that completely ignore significantly declining American social mobility, etc. I agree we need to have discussions on our safety net(s); however it needs to be about how better to structure them, not the current fund infinitely or gut horrendously conversation.

"There are also key industries who are farming Americans like animals. Telecoms companies, banks, insurance companies and large hospital groups are four of the biggest industry offenders. Unions as a group are also exploiting Americans, having strangled and killed many of America's industries and companies."

and see common ground. But as much as both parties are in the hands of large private interests, one of them at least has the common decency to be embarrassed about it, while the other calls them job creators.

How can you stop the "obscene extraction" if you refuse to acknowledge that the system is unfair? It's not good for society when all the wealth gets concentrated at the top. Unions used to be way to keep the benefits of commerce merely from accruing at the top of the spectrum. Probably outmoded now.

50 years ago, the average CEO made 50-60 times the average worker. Now it's 518 times. You can't say with a straight face that modern CEO's are somehow working 518 times harder or smarter than their workers (especially as the CEO's pay seems to be unrelated to the performance of their companies. Make 10 million dollars and stay next year vs. make ten million dollars and get fired.) or that CEO's are working 10 times harder than they worked in the 60's.

In a meritocracy with equality of opportunity, being born in poverty would not doom to live in poverty.

But that is the case in the States. It's easier to achieve the American dream (work your way up from nothing) in Denmark than it is in America.

Does that maybe have something to do with the universal healthcare and near universal access to cheap higher education?

You may not like the methods Obama proposes to remedy inequality but at least he's talking about it.

The Republicans meanwhile have refused to really address how during the Bush expansion, the incomes of the top 1% experienced 10.3% growth while the rest only experienced 1.3%. They also captured 66% of the growth.

If Republicans want to win, they have to address this with something besides, "tax cuts" (not necessarily tax hikes, just something else.)

The first four years were about Obama's underlying idealism and patriotism, *and* a belief in the Republicans' underlying idealism and patriotism. I think he's saying that in his second term, the second part of that equation won't be there.

The GOP spent two years concentrating on stopping Obama's reelection instead of the nation's economic woes. They used budget discussions as opportunities to score political points rather than fixing the problems of Americans. If it wasn't for gerrymandered congressional districts they would be a minority in both houses. They have no problem with outsourcing and middle class job losses, as long as Wall Street is doing well. Conservatives SAY they love America, but they love money more.